We report results for simulating an effective field theory to compute the binding energy of the deuteron nucleus using a hybrid algorithm on a trapped-ion quantum computer. Two increasingly complex unitary coupled-cluster ansatze have been used to compute the binding energy to within a few percent for successively more complex Hamiltonians. By increasing the complexity of the Hamiltonian, allowing more terms in the effective field theory expansion, and calculating their expectation values, we present a benchmark for quantum computers based on their ability to scalably calculate the effective field theory with increasing accuracy. Our result of E-4 = - 2.220 +/- 0.179 MeV may be compared with the exact deuteron ground-state energy -2.224 MeV. We also demonstrate an error mitigation technique using Richardson extrapolation on ion traps. The error mitigation circuit represents a record for deepest quantum circuit on a trapped-ion quantum computer.